Oklahoma City is irritating, but never stops winning. The Thunder arrive in Denver on Friday with the Western Conference’s No. 1 seed secured, and victories in 19 of their last 20 games.

They have the Great One in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the runaway favorite for back-to-back MVP honors. And the Grate One in Lu Dort, the willing villain in this budding rivalry. They also have roughly nine players named Jalen Williams, each better than the last.

The Thunder are a problem. And not the only one. The Spurs are not going anywhere, too young to know any better.

So as much as we want to declare the Nuggets a championship team — they own their first 10-game winning streak since 2013 — understand what that means.

It would require making history. No biggie, right?

The Nuggets are on a well-timed heater with the playoffs lurking. A week ago, a Friday smackdown with the Thunder would have been must-watch theatre, but the stakes have changed. Denver has snatched the No. 3 seed from the free-falling Lakers, and OKC has no reason to play its starters.

So this is not the litmus test we all wanted.

Soon enough, we will find out if the Nuggets’ frailties are too prominent to advance through the postseason turnstiles.

They have qualities that could, even should, make them the best. They also have issues that could leave them burdened by regret.

How can a team with Nikola Jokic, once again assuming the title of best player in the world, be vulnerable?

How can a team playing like this get clobbered over the head in the playoffs?

There are two things that you need to get comfortable with if convinced a parade sequel is possible: The 2006 Miami Heat. And defense.

Miami is the last champion to topple multiple 60-win teams in the postseason. Since 1993, it has only been done by the Bulls (three times), the 1995 Rockets and Heat. The Magic knocked out a pair of 60-win clubs in 2009, but lost in the Finals to the Lakers.

Five times in 33 seasons resulted in a ring, and more than half of the feats involved Michael Jordan. It doesn’t exactly soothe the nerves.

OKC makes the skin crawl, and San Antonio’s new car smell is annoying, but taking them both out would be more impressive than Rocky’s half-court bank shot.

It would be the most unlikely title since the 1997 Broncos, who eliminated the Chiefs and Steelers on the road and dismissed the Packers as the biggest underdog since the Jets in Super Bowl III. That team, forever remembered in our region, was motivated to capture the franchise’s first title for John Elway.

Win one for Jonas doesn’t exactly have the same ring to it.

But if you don’t believe in the Nuggets now, you never will. They have capitalized on a soft stretch in a league where one-third of the teams are tanking. Their health has improved, save for Peyton Watson’s absence, and their opening night starting lineup is 18-5.

The Nuggets outlasted the Spurs last Saturday, an overtime victory where Jokic served notice to Victor Wembanyama that he can make his MVP case at the podium, but not on the court against him.

Everything about the victory illustrated what could make this 2023 all over again.

But the truth is, the Nuggets caught a break that postseason. They plowed through the Timberwolves, Suns, Lakers and Heat. Not one of those opponents had 46 regular-season wins, let alone 60.

The Nuggets need not apologize for the path, but it was the autobahn compared to the mountainous terrain that awaits.

What makes the climb so tough? The Nuggets’ flirtation with defense.

“I think we need to do a better job of (it),” guard Christian Braun said.

Or as coach David Adelman put it, “At some point you have to sit down and guard.”

As it stands, there is poetry in the Nuggets’ offense, but no symmetry with all other phases. In recent wins, the Nuggets yielded 72 first-half points to the Blazers — rhymes with average — and the barnstorming Memphis G-League All-Stars.

They suffocated the Blazers in the fourth. And the Grizzlies in the third.

Why does it take embarrassment to get that type of effort?

The wins are something. But they will mean nothing if the Nuggets cannot play on both ends of the floor.

The dirty little secret is this: The Nuggets will not survive prolonged defensive lapses against the Spurs or Thunder, especially on the road. And they will have to steal a game on those courts to move on.

“We have flipped defensively at some point in all these games. We have been inconsistent all year with that,” Adelman admitted. “When we get stops and defensive rebounds…�� we get fast break points to complement the shooting, the post-ups, all those things, and we are really hard to beat.”

The Nuggets have demonstrated they can do it. But it requires, as Adelman explained, “really good focus.” There can be hiccups. Not gasps. There can be mistakes. But not a layup line of blow-bys.

The Nuggets are impossible to guard when they blend transition buckets with their half-court motion offense. They have the lineup and the bench to defeat any of their playoff opponents. They also have a defense that could deliver a first-round exit.

Go ahead, feel good about what the Nuggets are doing, about where they stand.

But stopping the clap of Thunder and rattle of Spurs calls for something special. It demands going down in history for making one of the most improbable playoff runs our state has ever seen.

No one wanted the Broncos to spend like Liberace. But how about Cincinnati?

Only three teams have yet to sign a free agent off another roster since legal tampering opened Monday morning: the Seahawks, Jaguars and Broncos.

All are playoff teams.

The difference? The nuance? Seattle won the Super Bowl last month. And the Jaguars are a “smaller market” team. Are the Broncos really taking cues from them?

The Seahawks crossed the finish line because of shrewd additions. They took risks on quarterback Sam Darnold and receiver Cooper Kupp.

There were misses, like receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling. But, this was a contender determined to take a step forward. It was not unlike the Eagles the previous year when they added running back Saquon Barkley and defensive back C.J. Gardner-Johnson.

Seattle’s gamble paid off in a ring.

So what are the Broncos doing?

What new running back did they sign this week?

Nobody.

Which secondary receiver did they welcome to a room that needs experience?

None.

What about tight end? Surely, they brought in help at a position that has struggled with receiving production since the salad days of Noah Fant. Right?

Nope.

Perhaps the previous free agent signings by coach Sean Payton and general manager George Paton convinced everyone into believing the Broncos would make a single headline-worthy move.

That was the expectation.

And it was born from words, not delusion.

Paton explained at the end-of-season press conference in January that, “We will determine our needs. We’ll be aggressive in filling those needs.”

In addressing how coming so close could shape this offseason, coach Payton admitted at the NFL Combine, “We won a lot of games by one score or less (12-3 record). I’m not naive enough to think those games couldn’t have swung. You could grab any two or three, but where’s the meat on the bone? It is with our takeaways. That has to improve. Our run game consistency (has to improve).”

So what happened?

The Broncos fell in love with their own players in a sport where falling in like is advised.

They finished with the second fewest takeaways in franchise history last season, and instead of pursuing Jacksonville linebacker Devin Lloyd — he had five interceptions a year ago, one more than the Broncos’ entire starting secondary — they stayed in-house, re-signing Justin Strnad and Alex Singleton.

They are solid players. But wasn’t the preference one or the other? Apparently not.

The thought is that they steady Vance Joseph’s defense, in play calls, blitzes and leadership. But are they good enough to win a Super Bowl? You’ve seen them. Do you agree?

It is easier to argue for sticking with the inside linebackers than with the offensive positions.

To run it back at running back remains deflating.

Understand something. Everyone loves J.K. Dobbins, the bilingual breakaway threat who answers to the nickname “El Toro.” But if you are going to be OK with bringing him back with a $5 million raise, then you have to be prepared for the consequences, namely that he will not play a full season.

It has never happened. His injury history looks like a script from “The Pitt.”

Dobbins defended the Broncos’ move on social media. He replied with fire to a Twitter post that asked how Denver could pay him $10 million a year and not give Travis Etienne Jr. $13 million: “Go be a fan of a different team lame (butt) dude and don’t try to turn back around when I shut the fluke injury (blank) up this year.”

I was cool with keeping Dobbins — as a complementary piece to Etienne. The Broncos had enough money to pay them both.

Have we forgotten how Dobbins’ foot injury derailed the offense last year? The run game wilted with rookie R.J. Harvey as the starter, costing the Broncos a chance to win the AFC Championship. Payton is correct. Consistency is the key. But it is impossible without availability.

If Dobbins stays in the lineup, it will be a terrific story. The odds are against it.

The Broncos boast a championship-caliber defense. So, not arming Bo Nix with more weapons while he is on a rookie contract feels like a huge mistake.

There is the belief, one expressed by Payton, that free agents can be deceiving. Last August, he told a story of his parents finding couches — thanks to friend Andrew Mason of 104.3 The Fan for digging this up — at garage sales.

“They would come home with a new couch. And you were so excited — it was a sectional — until you sat in the left corner and it wiggled,” Payton said. “And then you realized why it was a free agent.”

This is countered by the fact that the Broncos don’t sniff the NFL’s Final Four without significant free agent upgrades in Mike McGlinchey, Ben Powers, Zach Allen and Talanoa Hufanga.

The hit rate on open market players is around 35 percent. And that was Denver’s batting average last season when landing Hufanga, Dre Greenlaw and Evan Engram.

Again, no one was asking them to go full John Elway when he signed DeMarcus Ware, Aqib Talib, T.J. Ward and Emmanuel Sanders in 2014. But let’s be clear, the Broncos had the best offense in NFL history before they arrived, and they would not have won the Super Bowl without the defensive boost.

Yes, Payton and Paton have earned the benefit of the doubt. But why make it so hard on themselves, especially with the schedule much tougher next season?

This means they have to ace the draft — Arkansas running back Mike Washington Jr. or Vanderbilt tight end Eli Stowers make a lot of sense. They have to stay healthy and coach up young players like Harvey, Troy Franklin and Pat Bryant.

It is not a terrible plan. It is just the worst plan for this offseason. They are so close, and no one objectively watches the offense and thinks it is elite.

So, the answer is Davis Webb calling plays? That is going to make up the difference that could have been provided by a big-time free agent? Are we even sure Webb is going to keep the job all season? Are you convinced he is not going to get pushback on new ideas from Payton?

The defense to all of this is the 11 contract extensions signed since July 2024. Those players returned the Broncos to relevancy and achieved cost certainty.

So, given the chance to make a splash, the Broncos chose not to dip their toes in the pool.

The big names are gone in free agency.

The Broncos decided to do nothing. And be very loud about it. Maybe they are right. It would not be the first time. But if not, we don’t want to hear any excuses about how they lacked a playmaker.

You are welcome, Broncos. This is your free agent wish list. Your offseason orange and blueprint.

Enough with starter by committee.

Enough with sacrificing games to develop a prospect.

Enough with a screen game that should be a drinking scream game.

Enough with under 4 yards per carry.

The Broncos have sprung to life over the past three years under coach Sean Payton. But when it comes to their offense, enough is enough. Payton surrendered play-calling to Davis Webb — it is in name only until evidence arrives in games — but that cannot suffice.

For the Broncos to reach the Super Bowl and win it — the last two steps on this remarkable climb back to relevancy — they have to go for it. Sign free agent running back Travis Etienne Jr.

Take cues from the Avs. No team understands the urgency of operating in a championship window like the local hockey club. The Nazem Kadri trade is a sensational move by an organization that cares about one thing — winning a championship.

Payton deserves praise for his work. As does general manager George Paton for creating a sturdy foundation through the draft.

But there is no longer room for patience. Be proactive, not reactive.

The NFL roster narrative is simple to follow. Construction hinges on having a franchise quarterback, as the Broncos have in Bo Nix.

And when you have one on a rookie contract, it provides an opportunity to take big swings at other positions. The Broncos are good at the most important: edge rusher, cornerback and left tackle.

They are not paying big money to a receiver or a tight end. And this is not the March to max out the credit card on those positions when reinforcements can be added in the draft.

That is not the case at running back. Once Jeremiyah Love comes off the board — possibly in the top five — the infatuation ends.

So pick up the phone and go big.

Etienne checks the boxes. He is dynamic. He is fast, capable of accelerating through the hole and shifting into third gear in the open field. He has soft hands and is better in space than an astronaut.

In many ways, he is a more available version of J.K. Dobbins. Dobbins was a terrific fit, but he played in only 10 games, unable to run away from his injury history.

Etienne, 27, has missed six games in four seasons. Durability is a skill. He has it. And he has also improved as a pass protector, meaning there should be no concern about leaving him in the game on third down.

It is a must to have a player like this. An obvious starter. And upgrade. R.J. Harvey boasts Joker traits in the passing game. He will not be forgotten. But context matters. The Broncos possess a championship-caliber defense. They are close.

This is not the platform to let a second-year player figure it out as he goes.

Enough.

The Broncos must address this position in a meaningful way. It feels like ����apountry would rather step in front of a moving bus than add someone like Rico Dowdle or Kenneth Gainwell.

Kenneth Walker III? Sure. He is coming off the best game of his career. In the biggest game of his life. That requires paying showroom floor prices.

It is not my money, so the $14.6 million annually he will command — using Breece Hall’s franchise tag as the floor — does not bother me.

The issue? It does not make as much sense since Walker is not an every-down back. Even after Zach Charbonnet tore up his knee, Walker still yielded snaps to the backup.

Let the Chiefs set the market. It is clear they will add a runner to take the pressure off Patrick Mahomes as he recovers from knee surgery.

His patience as a runner is the most appealing characteristic, a style that could finally marry the solid blocking metrics with results.

It has been an uncomfortable question after the past two seasons. The Broncos’ offensive line ranks near the top of the pack, and somehow the run game remains mediocre or, as in the case of a huge fourth down in the AFC Championship, unreliable.

Payton and Paton have earned the benefit of the doubt in the way they have built this team. But goodwill will get siphoned without a big splash.

The external and internal expectations should intersect this week.

Last year was different. Objectively, the Broncos were a year ahead of schedule. So they can be forgiven for trying to get by without explosive weapons. Their one stab at it did not work as Evan Engram morphed into a platoon player.

The Broncos cannot afford to try to live on that margin again. The Rams are going for it, acquiring star cornerback Trent McDuffie. The Bills are making a strong push, acquiring receiver D.J. Moore. The Ravens are shipping off two first-round picks for edge rusher Maxx Crosby. And the Seahawks, even if Walker signs somewhere else, are not going anywhere.

This is the type of approach required in Denver. It is easy to argue that this is the most important offseason since the Broncos added DeMarcus Ware, Aqib Talib, T.J. Ward and Emmanuel Sanders in 2014. That was back when John Elway was acting like George Steinbrenner.

This time around, the Broncos are only a fraction of that daring. A dash of that bold.

The Broncos have a problem. Their offense is not good enough for a championship. So, fix it.

Go to the ATM and sign Etienne.

It will be money well spent.

They won 15 games. They reached the AFC Championship in their second-straight playoff appearance. And their roster cements them as an annual contender, faster than anyone thought possible.

Which makes it obvious which big move should happen next.

Give general manager George Paton a contract extension.

You haven’t always liked him. You still might not like him. And if you bought a Russell Wilson jersey, you may never like him.

Too bad. He’s really good.

And, it is time for co-owner and CEO Greg Penner to reward him.

“It is overdue,” coach Sean Payton explained Tuesday. “It will get done.”

Paton is set to enter the last season of a six-year contract. Are the Broncos really going to let the man who drafted the Oregon Duck quarterback enter 2026 as a lame duck?

Penner is too smart for this. The parties have talked. There is no concern that it won’t get worked out. And it should. For several reasons.

Though he is not looking for credit, a new deal validates the vision Penner had for Paton. The GM has evolved, improved from the owner challenging him.

When people ask what’s the rush or are curious why Paton is in line for another payday, they bring up Nathaniel Hackett and Wilson. Paton hired the failed coach, acquired the failed quarterback and ultimately paid Wilson $121 million for two seasons.

He got it so wrong we all assumed — myself included — that Paton would be fired after the Walton-Penner group no longer needed his expertise to navigate a coaching search. Or that Payton would bring in somebody he knew from New Orleans.

Instead, Penner gave Paton a second chance, exercised patience, creating a triangle of leadership. Paton and Payton report to him and have flourished working together.

They watch more film together than Siskel and Ebert. Paton creates equilibrium. He is measured. Payton, especially on game day or when forced to listen to jazz music in San Jose, is nuclear.

The partnership is “very complementary,” as Penner put it. And there’s more depth to Paton that most realize. Under Penner, he has become better at the manager part of his role. He holds people accountable, and not surprisingly, it has helped the Broncos rebound.

Don’t believe it?

These numbers should change your mind. Over the past five years, Paton has secured second contracts with five players he drafted: All-Pros Pat Surtain, Quinn Meinerz and Nik Bonitto and starters Jonathon Cooper and Luke Wattenberg. Bo Nix is on track to become the sixth after next season.

John Elway signed three players to contract extensions in the previous 10 years — Von Miller, Derek Wolfe and Garett Bolles. A fourth, Courtland Sutton, agreed to a new deal under Paton in 2021.

Paton has found his groove, a point driven home when wandering through the Indiana Convention Center, where so much talk focuses on misses, whiffs and busts.

That is why Elway hired him. Paton had a track record for acing the draft and keeping homegrown prospects in the fold.

There is no question that Penner appreciates what Paton has done. He admitted as much when I asked him a few weeks ago, saying, “We’d love to have both (Paton and Payton) here long-term.”

Penner trusts Payton. They can have open, honest conversations.

So why make him wait any longer?

Finding a date to talk with Paton’s representative, who has been busy with coaching contracts, appears to be the biggest obstacle. That is a wrinkle that is easily ironed out.

In a sport where continuity and stability pay dividends, Paton shifted perceptions this season.

The Broncos won their first division title and playoff game in a decade. That does not happen without a balanced roster, one that produced victories even when Surtain and starting running back J.K. Dobbins were sidelined.

Seriously, how many teams are deeper than the Broncos right now?

It is a testament to Paton that his process withstood failure. With ownership in flux and feuding under the Bowlen family, Paton took his shot with Hackett and Wilson. He missed. And admits it.

But instead of waiting for a pink slip, he rolled up his sleeves. While critics believe Payton runs the draft, that thinking misses clear facts. Like the 2021 class.

This group has helped form the foundation of this team. And with Payton clear on what he wants from players as competitors and learners, Paton has become even better at identifying fits.

This is not just a football story. In a transactional business, Paton excels at relationships.

It is not just how he does his job, but who he is. He holds people accountable, but treats them well. His confidence has been built over decades of hard work. During his first combines, he ran errands and kept the suite stocked with snacks.

He has never lost his love for the game or forgotten his roots. He treats people the way he wants to be treated. It inspires fierce loyalty and helps those around him reach their potential.

You don’t think relationships matter? Paton has signed 11 players to contract extensions since July 2024 for nearly half a billion dollars. Money is always the driving force, but so is the faith that players and agents have when Paton gives them his word.

Not surprisingly, he received an ‘A’ grade from the NFLPA players survey released Thursday.

The Broncos are back for a number of reasons. Most have become obvious during games with the man on the headset and the improved talent on the field.

Whatever the terms of his contract, Paton has certainly outperformed them.

It is time, past time, for a new one.

In October 2020, Tom Bonds had called Paton one morning and said the family was taking brother Jim home from the hospital for hospice, after a long battle with cancer. So Paton, then the assistant general manager for the Vikings, hopped on a flight from Minnesota to California before the Vikings were set for a rivalry game with Green Bay in a week’s time. No questions asked. This was Paton’s college roommate at UCLA, fraternity brother, revered high school coach in Southern California and longtime friend.

Paton came to Jim’s house in Valencia and stayed. At one point, Paton drove 45 minutes across Los Angeles to a hospital to retrieve some medicine for Jim. He told the family — wife Tricia, and children James and Katie — that he’d be there for them. He regaled the kids the night he arrived with stories of their dad, and after Jim died the next week, his kids have said that the day Paton spun memories with them was one of the most impactful days of their lives.

“That,” said Brian Schwartz, another longtime friend and UCLA fraternity brother, “just exemplifies George.”

Years later, Paton is now in Denver, coming off an AFC title-game run as the Broncos’ general manager just two years after eating Russell Wilson’s $242.6 million contract and swallowing the . Many who call Paton a close friend do not attempt to explain his steadiness via the particulars of roster management or cap analysis. Instead, they mention Jim Bonds and Paton, the friend who was there until the very end and sought no shred of credit or public attention .

“I think it’s because of his personality,” Schwartz told The Post, discussing Paton’s steadiness. “His desire to not see the limelight. Just like he did with Jimmy.”

In Denver, it has created a decision-making ecosystem with some balance, partnering with a head coach who is constantly in the limelight. It did not come easy. When Sean Payton arrived as the Broncos’ head coach in 2023, he needed time at first to feel out Paton. The general manager was a very unpopular man in Denver following a couple of massive misfires — the disastrous hiring of Nathaniel Hackett and��the trade and massive extension for Wilson. So Payton sought advice from longtime mutual friend and NFL insider Jay Glazer.

Glazer, also an MMA trainer and motivational speaker, told Payton he could trust Paton.

“I’ve seen a ton of GMs backstab the head coach, and vice versa,” Glazer told The Post. “And George has always had Sean’s back. Always. And that is so valuable. Especially when you’re going to try and make a lot of changes in the place.”

Three seasons with Payton and the Walton-Penner ownership group, indeed, have brought sweeping change in Denver. But the general manager has not changed. Somehow. Payton is known across the NFL for his desire to surround himself with allies he trusts, and members of Denver’s front-office regime were initially concerned Paton would get pushed out, an NFL source with knowledge of the Broncos’ building recounted to The Denver Post.

“If you ask anybody in the league … they’re like, ‘Oh, well, George’s days are numbered, that’s a bummer,'” the source said.

Instead, Paton’s days are on the verge of extension. He “never wavered,” Tom Bonds said. Paton has led the Broncos to re-sign 13 current members of their 2026 roster to new deals (according to data collected from Spotrac), add key starters from Zach Allen to Talanoa Hufanga on team-friendly deals, and found cheap young offensive production in the draft from quarterback Bo Nix to running back RJ Harvey. The franchise’s baseline foundation, suddenly, stacks up with most any across the NFL.

“I mean, I never flinched,” Paton told The Denver Post on Tuesday in a brief conversation, walking between obligations at the combine.

“Always figured we would turn it around,” he continued. “And we did. And I’m not surprised.”

Payton, across that time, has given increasingly glowing public reviews of Paton, and has privately lobbied Broncos ownership for a new contract for Paton as the general manager heads into the last year of his deal. The relationship has clicked in large part because of Paton’s nature, a man who knows the attention in Denver is centered around the head coach’s office — and who’s perfectly fine with that.

“I think they are positioned to win,” one NFL agent told The Post, “for as long as this group of people stays together.”

Elway’s successor

In January 2021, members of Denver’s scouting department got an email from then-Broncos GM John Elway.

“He was like, ‘Everybody needs to hop on a Zoom call in 30 minutes,'” a source in the building said. “Everybody was like, ‘What the hell?'”

Elway’s announcement — he was stepping away from his duties as general manager, and would lead a search for a new GM — sent shockwaves through the organization . The man, after all, was immortal in Denver, with two Super Bowl rings as a player and one as an executive. Elway told staff on that call he felt the search for his successor was part of his legacy in Denver, too.

Paton, a Vikings assistant GM who’d bootstrapped his way through NFL circles, was among the names floated. After a stint as a defensive back in UCLA’s program and a brief overseas career, he coached the sophomore football team at his alma mater, Loyola High School, in 1996 on a stipend of $1,000 (they went undefeated). In 1997, Paton landed a scouting job with the Bears and showed up on the doorstep of Tom Bonds’ house in Chicago, asking if he could crash in his basement for a few days (he ended up living there for 2.5 years). In the mid-2000s, when Paton was the director of pro personnel in Miami, he’d play games of four-on-four lunchtime hoops with Nick Saban.

Their squad was usually Saban, Paton, and assistant coaches Jason Garrett and Derek Dooley. Paton was a “little scrawny dude,” as friend Schwartz said, who didn’t play basketball much. But he could scrap, and always ended up on the floor. One day, as Garrett recalled to The Post, Paton couldn’t play, and Saban grew frustrated with his remaining teammates’ levels of effort.

“Nobody’s getting any loose balls!” the future Alabama mogul roared, as Garrett remembered.

Paton, too, was a grinder in personnel rooms. Equally as important, he had a sense of how to level out coaching personalities, from working with Saban to working with Mike Zimmer in Minnesota. He’d largely bided his time, outside of a push for San Francisco’s general manager job in 2017, under Minnesota GM Rick Spielman. And the Broncos’ situation in 2021 wasn’t entirely stable, since Denver was operating without a primary owner after the 2019 death of Pat Bowlen.

But Paton respected the history in Denver. When Elway got dinner with him at Elway’s Steakhouse after a formal interview in early January 2021, Elway made it clear he wouldn’t let him leave without a commitment to Denver, Paton told now-close-friend Tom Bonds the following morning.

“I think he saw a lot of the qualities of, like, an old-school football man in George,” a source who was in the Broncos’ building told The Post. “A guy that has a meticulous process that he sticks to that was calm and collected, and confident, and steady, and not erratic as a personality.”

A week before Paton’s first NFL Draft in the spring of 2021, he, Schwartz and Schwartz’s wife were out to dinner at Los Dos Potrillos. Paton’s phone buzzed. It was Elway, who was still serving as Denver’s president. Paton took the call, left, and came back.

“He just wants to know who we’re drafting,” Paton told Schwartz, as he recalled.

So Schwartz asked, too. Paton refused to tell him. Schwartz started to get frustrated. They were buddies, after all. And then it occurred to him that his friend was so quiet on all matters that he hadn’t even told John Elway,��of all people, a week before the draft.

“He probably even keeps it,” Schwartz joked, “from his own son.”

The dark times

The Broncos were drafting Pat Surtain II, of course.

There was plenty of pressure back in 2021 on Paton to take a quarterback in his first draft, and he and staff sat for hours and days and weeks in April, crushing tape on Ohio State’s Justin Fields and Alabama’s Mac Jones. Paton consulted analytics. He consulted scouts who’d visited Ohio State. And he kept coming back to one conclusion: Alabama cornerback Surtain was the cleanest player, regardless of position, in the draft.

Paton is “beloved” in the personnel community, Glazer said, for his aptitude in collegiate scouting. Paton was a key voice in the Vikings drafting longtime Vikings difference-makers like safety Harrison Smith, tight end Kyle Rudolph and defensive end Brian Robison, former Minnesota head coach Leslie Frazier told The Post. And Paton has a near-photographic memory, friend and former Broncos quarterback Matt Mauck said, to recall specific traits and medical history from most any player in any draft class.

All that aside, though, the city of Denver — a quarterback town — was not particularly pleased with the Surtain pick at No. 9 at the time in 2021.

“He’d be like, ‘Oh, (expletive), why you got The Fan on?'” the NFL source with knowledge of the building said, referring to Denver sports radio station 104.3 The Fan. “Those guys are killing me.'”

The city of Denver was pleased, of course, with the following year’s blockbuster deal for Wilson. Paton had gone to see North Carolina’s Sam Howell and Pitt’s Kenny Pickett in person, the source said, and was largely unimpressed with the crop of quarterbacks in the 2022 draft class. The Wilson deal was a win-now move, meant to catapult a struggling franchise behind a 10-time Pro Bowler; Paton already made clear to Wilson’s agent Mark Rodgers during trade negotiations that the Broncos had the intention to extend Wilson, and Paton “kept his promise,” as Rodgers said.

The rest is ugly history. Wilson didn’t fit with Paton and Denver and especially Payton, after Paton hired and then fired young offensive mind Nathaniel Hackett in less than one season in 2022. The Broncos benched Wilson with two games to play in 2023, and ate a record $85 million in dead cap money . Wilson later accused Denver of threatening to bench him midseason if he didn’t adjust his contract.

“I have a very positive feeling about George,” Rodgers told The Post. “And some people might be surprised by that. But I think if you’re going to stay in sports, you have to be able to separate the people from the problem.”

The Surtain pick was made with the philosophy that there would be no shortcuts, after Paton assumed the helm of a franchise that had gone 32-48 in its five seasons since winning Super Bowl 50. The Wilson trade was an attempted shortcut, though, for an executive who has always made his money more from scouting collegiate talent and high-upside pro personnel than gambling on high-leverage deals.

“I think — if you just look at George, I think you would say that’s out of his character a little bit,” Schwartz said, reflecting on the Wilson trade. “Because he’s so much about the draft … he’s like an encyclopedia about people that he didn’t draft.”

Hackett came and went. Wilson’s contract became an albatross. New ownership and a culture-changing new coach arrived at the beginning of 2023. And Paton’s own friends worried privately for him. After an 8-9 season that invited promise in 2023, though, Paton went to a happy hour at Ocean Prime with Mauck, who marveled at the fact that the general manager had stuck around.

“This is gonna sound really bad,” recalled Mauck, who’s now the team dentist for Denver. “But I said, ‘The fact that you still have a job lets you know how good you are at what you do.’

“And I think that����ap true. He was able to survive something that a lot of people wouldn’t.”

In those days, Tom Bonds and his wife, Julie,��tried to visit Denver and attend games as many times as they could when the “times were the darkest,” as Bonds put it.

“Because,” Bonds said, “it felt like that would signal to him that we’re in this forever. Just like he was with us, as Jimmy was in his last days.”

The Payton partnership

At the time, the Hackett hire made some sense. So did the Wilson trade. So did the Wilson extension, even. All were swings that didn’t connect.

“He took a big swing on Nathaniel Hackett, and you could make – just objectively speaking – you could say that was a swing and a miss,” Rodgers said. “And he took a big swing on Russell Wilson, and at the end of the day … some people would say that was a swing and a miss.

“But I’ll be damned if he didn’t take a swing at Sean Payton,” Rodgers continued, “after those two situations.”

Payton’s arrival brought even more potential instability. Inside the Broncos’ building, as the NFL source recounted to The Post, any player who was a previous Paton draftee was “put under a microscope.” The head coach wasn’t initially sold on 2022 second-round pick Nik Bonitto, for one. And Payton verbalized his frustration over the Wilson deal, the source said, done before his arrival.

Payton, though, had a couple of trusted connection points to Paton in Zimmer — who Payton worked with under Bill Parcells in Dallas in the mid-2000s — and Glazer. Paton trusted in Payton’s ability to build Denver’s locker room. And he didn’t waver, even in private, multiple friends told The Post.

“I knew he was going to win, and I knew the culture he would bring,” Paton told The Post in Indianapolis. “I didn’t feel like I had to prove — I just had to be myself. And just do what I’m doing, and come together, and develop a process together.

“And it wasn’t about me,” Paton added. “We just wanted to win.”

That was made slightly more difficult by the Wilson deal, which impacted how the Broncos shaped their offseason approach. From Payton’s first season in Denver, the Broncos focused on “building this up front,” as former Broncos assistant GM and now-Jets GM Darren Mougey told The Post this week. Denver shelled out over $138 million to bring tackle Mike McGlinchey and guard Ben Powers into the fold in 2023 free agency. Beyond that, their payroll was weighed down under Wilson’s cap number.

“We had to really be decisive in who we were bringing in,” the source with knowledge of the building said. “Because you don’t have room to miss, in that situation.”

Paton arrived every day to work, still, at 6 a.m. Free-agency meetings ran later. Denver let defensive lineman Dre’Mont Jones walk in 2023’s free agency to sign a three-year, $51.3 million deal with the Seahawks. The Broncos instead signed Zach Allen for three years and $45.8 million. He’s become a two-time All-Pro in three years in Denver. The Broncos then found major value in safety Brandon Jones and defensive tackle Malcolm Roach in free agency in 2024.

Paton’s superpower in Minnesota, former GM Spielman recalled, was his ability to relate to all members of the coaching staff. Former Vikings HC Frazier remembered feeling “symbiotic” with Paton, and Paton working to understand what Frazier and the rest of Minnesota’s staff were looking for in defensive talent. Much further into Paton’s career, that same understanding has built with Payton, as the Broncos’ general manager has grown well aware of the player profile (smart, tough) that Payton favors.

“I think he treats it just the way he would any other coach,” Schwartz saidof Paton’s relationship with Payton. “His thinking, at least what he’s told me, is, his job is to — know the coaches. And know, and have real good communication with them on what they need. And then he goes out and executes that.”

The Pa(y)ton relationship, now, is about balance. Payton loves trading up. Paton loves accumulating capital. Payton attracts the spotlight. Paton sits a comfortable distance outside of it.

“He’s the face,” mutual friend Glazer said, of Payton. “And George wants him to be the face. That����ap kinda rare.”

Next steps

Recently, Schwartz asked former UCLA buddy Paton what he thought about the Bruins’ hire of new football coach Bob Chesney.

“What do I know,” Paton joked, as Schwartz recalled, “about hiring a coach?”

Jamaal Stephenson, a longtime Vikings personnel staffer, noted that Minnesota’s building “felt different” after Paton took the Denver job in 2021. He brought levity, Stephenson recalled, in a league of serious moments.

“We missed him,” Stephenson said, now a senior personnel executive with the Vikings. “We missed his personality, we missed his evaluating, we missed his friendship.”

Talk around a potential Paton reunion in Minnesota has swirled since the Vikings fired former GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah in late January, with Paton’s original six-year deal in Denver heading into its last season. Several of Paton’s friends who spoke with The Post, though, said the general manager is quite happy in Denver.�� And staff who’ve been inside the Broncos’ building believe owner Greg Penner sees the value in Paton’s balance in personality to Payton, as Penner said at an end-of-year news conference he believes their partnership is “complementary.”

“Find me the head coach and the GM tied at the hip, and then you got a chance, you know?” Payton said in January.

Tom Bonds would once go to Empower Field and hear boos rain down from the Broncos’ own fanbase — boos Bonds couldn’t help but think were reflective of Paton, given his seat at the table. The dark times have passed, now.

When Bonds does come to games, he usually rides into Empower Field with Paton. The general manager will park and walk into the stadium, and straight onto the grass, Bonds said.

“Just so that he gets to take it in before the stadium’s filled up, and before the people are there …��and just look around and appreciate how far that he’s come,” Bonds said. “And that the Broncos are almost there.”

“We need guys to come in that (locker room) that have great attitude,” the Broncos’ Pro Bowl blocker, told me Monday morning at Ball Arena, just before the big guy took the stage “(We need them) to have a work ethic to come in here and fit into our culture.

“Because our culture is special. And when you have a great culture, you don’t want to put somebody in it (where) they can ruin it.”

An Eagle Scout, trustworthy and loyal to the last, helped set the tone for the defending AFC West champs. Did you know the man who kept Bo Nix’s blind side clean last fall — zero sacks allowed, according to Pro Football Focus, — received scouting’s highest honor back in 2008?

All scouts who reach Eagle level have to complete a service project first. Bolles made toy cars to be donated to children in Mexico, delivered personally by a local Santa Claus.

“And it was really cool to see the kids’ faces of the final products,” Bolles said. “And (Santa) would pack them all up — we would’ve put them in this big red sack. And he would fly to Mexico and deliver cars to all these rural areas.”

“So, basically,” I said, “you were the world’s biggest elf.”

Santa’s not-so-little helper smiled at that one. on No. 72 in blue.

“The moral of the story is, you can’t give up on what’s important in life,” Bolles told the kids on Monday. “You’ve got to find your why, why you do what you do. I learned that early on.”

And those lessons stuck. Scouting Colorado gave Bolles an award commemorating his Eagle Scout days. Then it handed him a trophy shaped like a round, wooden slab, as if cut from the trunk of some mighty tree.

“Maybe back then, I didn’t appreciate (the Boy Scouts) as much as I do now,” Bolles said. “Because I think it teaches you so much as a man — teaching you to be disciplined and learning the local laws of where you live. And from doing that to doing a service project to get your Eagle Scout (requirements). Just giving back to the community is truly what scouts is about.”

Whether because of Payton or in spite of him, the Broncos have piled up a lot of guys who are easy to root for. The veterans, especially. Courtland Sutton shook off injuries and inconsistency to lead the orange and blue out of the wilderness and into the sunshine. Alex Singleton is as forthright and funny off the field as he is firm and flinty on it.

But has anyone in Dove Valley, or maybe anyone in Denver sports, come as far as Bolles has over the last seven years?

All the crapola Riley Moss gets now, Bolles took for months. NFLPenalties.com, which tracks game-by-game infractions, credited the Broncos tackle in 2018 with committing 10 penalties, nine of them holding calls, and another 10 flags in ’19.

Since 2022, he’s averaged 3.75 holding flags per season —only about one a month, give or take. Pro Football Focus’ scouts said he went sackless over 803 pass-blocking snaps and gave him the best pass-protection grade (91.0) of any NFL offensive lineman.

He’s gone from being Mr. Available, to paraphrase John Elway, to Mr. Essential, a master craftsman who worked his tail off to become the best at his trade.

Kirby sucked it up and went back to work.

What’s that? Who’s Kirby? That’s the nickname a Scoutmaster gave Bolles some two decades ago,

Long story short, a teenaged Bolles was on a grueling mountain hike with his troop, and his elders challenged him to finish the darn thing.

“And I said, ‘Well, I’m just going to suck it up and get up this mountain,'” Bolles recalled. “So (‘Kirby’) was my nickname.”

It’s not how many times you get knocked down. It’s the times you climb right back up that hill again.

Bolles knows plenty about getting up — during those scouting years, he also was a youth hockey player up in Utah, an unabashed puckhead.

So, yeah, early Sunday, the one his wife put on social media, came from the heart. And from the past.

“I loved it. It was fascinating,” Bolls said. “All my family played, so growing up was just, (all the time), it was hockey.

“I remember when Sidney Crosby, when he was with Reebok back in the day,

Bolles’ game was legit, too. He did travel teams. Mini Mites. Mites. Squirts. Bantams. All the way through roughly age 16. He was a defenseman originally.

“And then they moved me to center,” he continued, “so that I could body off the guy to get the puck back to our defense on the open draws, And then I played left wing.”

Can you imagine the forechecks?

“And that’s sort of why I stopped,” Bolles explained. “Because my feet just started growing. And then I’m (like), ‘Do you guys have size 15 skates?’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah, that’s not really a size of skate that we normally use.'”

Hey, the NHL’s loss was ����apountry’s gain. Eight years ago, few Broncomaniacs were rocking a 72 jersey in public. Once Bolles is done in Denver, that 72 is going into the Ring of Fame.

Although the ring GB wants most And the sort of diamonds that twinkle back like a mountain sky at night.

“I remember one of our (Scouting) leaders would drop us off in the middle of somewhere and we had to navigate ourselves back with the compass,” Bolles chuckled. “And who uses the compass now? These are all life lessons … just all the life lessons that I learned have truly helped me become the man I am today.”

Bolles was a finalist for the NFL’s first Protector of the Year Award. It went to instead. Roger Goodell should demand a recount.

Dahlen, a longtime front-office and personnel executive in the NFL, stood alone as the winner of the most Super Bowls in league history (seven) until Patriots head coach Bill Belichick surpassed him in 2017. Dahlen won five Super Bowls across a tenure of nearly two decades with the San Francisco 49ers, and won two more as the Broncos’ director of player personnel in 1997 and 1998.

Following quarterback John Elway’s retirement in 1998, Dahlen served as the Broncos’ general manager from 1999 to 2001 alongside head coach Mike Shanahan, as Denver went 25-23 in Dahlen’s three seasons at the helm. After his retirement, Dahlen remained in Centennial, where he passed away on Sunday, Palko said.

Palko remembered her grandfather as a “very quiet” man who didn’t crave the spotlight, but was an important figure in the background of a slew of championship teams. Around every Super Bowl, Palko posts a tribute on social media in remembrance of Dahlen’s career.

“I’m trying to keep sharing his legacy, because most people don’t know who he is unless they’re Googling, like, ‘Who has the most Super Bowl rings?'” Palko said.

Former Broncos Super Bowl-winning offensive coordinator Rick Dennison, who was on Denver’s staff for several years with Dahlen in the front office, remembered Dahlen helping steady the roster in the period after Elway’s retirement. Two seasons after the legendary quarterback hung it up, Denver went 11-5, as rookie running back Mike Anderson — a sixth-round-pick — was named the Offensive Rookie of the Year

“Between him being so quiet about his contributions, which were bigger than his voice, I guess – he was a real stable personality around there,” Dennison said of Dahlen. “He really kept things moving, and did his job without a lot of fanfare.”

Dahlen’s organizations went 7-0 in their Super Bowl appearances, across a career of over three decades in the NFL. Dahlen, a California native, was .

“He was a man of few words,” Palko said. “But he has a big legacy.”

“I’d kept in touch with Jane, and she called last week,” former Nuggets assistant “Big” Bill Ficke told me Tuesday, not long after Moe, the Nuggets’ idiosyncratic coach from 1980-90, passed away at the age of 87.

“And when I talked to (Moe’s wife), she said, ‘We’re both at peace. Doug’s at peace with it. He’s ready to go. And I’m at peace with it.’ So it was good to hear that.”

Ficke was Moe’s right-hand man with the Nuggets from 1982-84, the Abbott to his Costello, at the start of one of the most successful — and absolutely bonkers — periods of the team’s history.

Under Moe, the Nuggets made the playoffs nine straight times, reached the Western Conference semis on four occasions and danced it all the way to the conference finals in 1985. The Nuggets wound up losing Alex English to a thumb injury in Game 4 of those finals, and the Lakers took the series in five. Denver wouldn’t reach the Western finals again until 2009.

“I thought he was one of the best coaches in the league,” Ficke continued. “A lot of those college coaches wouldn’t have told you that. They thought all he did was move the ball around and that was it.”

At the surface, everything about Doug Moe — his teams, his manner, his dress sense — seemed to embody complete madness. Yet there was a method. There was always more going on underneath the hood, kicking the way a baby duck’s legs kick through a summer pond.

, Ficke reminded me, he didn’t know Moe well until he’d moved to Denver more than four decades ago. In those days, Ficke lived west of I-25. Moe lived east of I-25. Doug’s place wasn’t wired for cable.

So this one afternoon, Bill’s phone rang.

“Hey, Ficke, you got cable?” Moe asked.

“Yeah,” Bill replied.

“You think it would be all right if I came over to watch a game tonight?”

“No problem.”

“Can I bring Jane?”

“Sure, my wife knows Jane.”

And over they came. About a week later, Moe called him again. Same request.

So this goes on a couple more times, well into the spring. One day, Bill thinks it was June of ’82, Moe called again.

“Hey Ficke,” Moe said. “How would you like to be my assistant?”

“Oh, (expletive),” Bill replied. “Don’t ask me twice.”

“He wanted somebody that he knew,” Ficke explained, “who wasn’t going to knife him in the back, that he could rely on. So it was great.”

So were they. Moe was ahead of his time. He’d followed his friend Brown to Denver, the frumpy ying to Brown’s structured yang, as a Nuggets assistant during the dying embers of the ABA. When Moe took over as the Nuggets’ head coach for Donnie Walsh, he weaponized altitude, preaching a high-tempo offense with constant motion and no set plays.

Moe and Ficke often rode together to games. On a rare day they didn’t, Doug had called the Nuggets locker room and asked for Big Bill.

“Ficke, I need you to coach tonight,” Moe said. “Because I’m sick.”

“OK,” Bill said.

“And Ficke, remember this: After two minutes, nobody’s listening. Don’t go into the (huddle), don’t go into the locker room and start talking.”

He knew his players. He knew his business. Moe was the NBA’s Coach of the Year in 1988. Brown helped transition the Nuggets into the NBA. But it was Moe, and his run-and-gun attack, that put the franchise on the national map.

“Hey, Doug, don’t you think we should put a couple plays in for Alex or somebody?” Ficke asked him once.

Moe pondered this for half a second.

“Ficke, if you put in one play,” the coach replied, “they’re not going to believe in our running game.”

On good nights, they ran teams ragged. Players were told not to hold the ball for more than two seconds. English and Kiki Vandeweghe ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in NBA scoring in 1982-83.

Moe’s Nuggets ran and dared the rest of the NBA to catch up. Those who saw them would fall in love with an end-to-end blur of rainbow jerseys, games in which no lead was ever safe. And where no parent could sit their kids within 15 feet of the Nuggets’ bench without hearing a torrent of Moe obscenities.

“Everybody has that image of him yelling at the players on the court,” Ficke recalled. “They didn’t realize that he was telling the players what was (about to happen) three steps ahead of them.”

When his teams didn’t entertain, Moe became the show, this cursing, grumbling, rumpled 6-foot-5 firebrand who dressed like a ’70s private detective, a disheveled anti-hero who detested suits. cast as a basketball player,

Moe once got fined for throwing water at an official. When he was fired in 1990, he brought champagne to a news conference to celebrate his axing because he was now being paid to do nothing.

He was a savant. He did five-digit multiplication in his head. Moe was a genius when it came to basketball and personalities. He was an absolute artist with profanities, as blunt as the business end of a sledgehammer.

“The thing was, everything was over with the next game, the next day,” Ficke recalled. “And the players knew that. And that’s why they respected him.”

While Moe painted in four-letter words, he became more renowned for one five-letter sobriquet: stiff. It was his pet phrase for try-hard guys. His pet phrase for athletically-challenged guys. It became his pet phrase for almost everybody.

Bill Hanzlik? Stiff. Danny Schayes? Stiff.

“I gave up trying to explain Doug Moe long ago,” Nuggets icon Dan Issel told the Los Angeles Times in 1985. “The thing I like about Doug is, he doesn’t take it personally. If you mess up and he hollers and screams, you had it coming. When the game’s over, it����ap forgotten. You can go have dinner with him.”

He laughed easily. He forgave easily. Moe used to joke that he was two guys: Before and after the tilt, a sheer delight. In between, a snarling, barking wolf from pregame until the final horn.

“The most loyal person you’d ever meet,” Ficke said. “They should put his picture next to the word ‘loyal’ in the dictionary. If you’re his friend, you’re his friend for life.”

Doug wouldn’t let his body get him down, although Lord knows his body tried. As a Nuggets assistant for George Karl in 2004, Moe suffered a heart attack and required bypass surgery. The next year, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which led to another procedure in September 2005.

Doug and Big Jane eventually retired down in San Antonio, close to their boys. Ficke visited the Moes down in Texas this past November. He remembers that they hung out for six hours or so. He remembers how they told war stories ’til it hurt. He also remembers a hospice nurse coming over daily to check on the former Nuggets coach.

“He was weak, don’t get me wrong,” Ficke said. “But he was upbeat.”

He was one of one, real as a hangover. Moe became the face of Denver sports before John Elway, the Nuggets’ Joker before Nikola Jokic. And the NBA still hasn’t quite caught up with him.

Luckily, Saint Peter’s coffee shop never closes, because Doug has more stories to tell, loosening a tie he hates, having tossed aside a jacket that never quite fit. The angels are in for an earful.

Football gripped his life for decades, as a high school star in Miami, a national championship winner at Michigan, a Pro Bowler for the Broncos and an acclaimed broadcaster.

In 2024, he found himself in the San Francisco 49ers practice facility, tucked away in a room, remote in hand.

“I loved being the quarterbacks coach,” said Griese of a room that boasted Brock Purdy, Sam Darnold and Brandon Allen. “But I missed my family and I felt there was a way for me to make a bigger impact.”

It was at this moment that my column broadened, deserving more than Griese’s musings on Bo Nix (don’t worry, those are coming).

Griese is someone who picks up my calls and makes me smarter about football. He offers honest assessments and contextualizes things based on his unique experience.

The timing to talk seemed appropriate. Nix’s second season is in the books. And Darnold, who rehabbed his career in San Francisco, just led the Seattle Seahawks to a Super Bowl victory.

Griese knows Darnold. He has a working knowledge of Nix. And he understands the position.

Could what happened with Seattle unfold for the Broncos?

“I don’t see why not. I have been impressed with Bo, the person, the quarterback, the way he processes,” Griese said. “He has a strong defense. And you just saw what the Seahawks did with a great defense, running the ball and taking care of it. There’s no reason Denver can’t do that. Bo improved last season, and that isn’t always the case when the league gets film on you. He will continue to get better, but they are going to need a few more offensive weapons.”

Nix threw for 3,931 yards, 25 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. He led the NFL with seven fourth-quarter comebacks, something Griese said, “builds trust not only with coaches, but teammates and everyone in the building.”

Still, criticism of Nix lingers. NFL.com recently and foolishly ranked him 18th overall, behind Aaron Rodgers.

For Nix to take the next step, his spray chart must look more like a Jackson-Pollock painting than an Etch-A-Sketch. He needs to hit on more passes in the middle of the field and calm his frenetic feet.

Griese was not comfortable addressing specifics about Nix — he watched the Broncos games last season as a fan after all — but explained how he coached his quarterbacks.

“You have to slow down to play fast,” Griese said. “What I mean by that is that you have to go through your reads. If you skip over your first read to get to your second, that player might be covered by the inside backer because you never looked the defender off. If you go through the steps, it helps create patience.”

Griese points to Purdy and Darnold as examples, providing a peek behind the curtain. Before the 2024 season, the quarterbacks decided on a core set of values: accountability, honesty and empathy. It was Griese’s job to show up for them, his time and consistency making their expectations clear to them.

He watched Purdy grow from the last pick in the draft to leading the 49ers to a Super Bowl in his second season. Darnold, on his fifth team, won the big game last Sunday.

“I get emotional talking about Sam because I know what he was like when he walked through my door (in 2024),” Griese said. “He had been thrown to the scrap heap, labeled a bust. He could have had a good life as a backup. But not once did he complain or make excuses. He said, ‘I just want to see how good I can be.’ It all started with humility and his ability to learn from mistakes.”

His story shares common threads with Griese’s. As the starting quarterback of the Broncos in 1999, Griese was not equipped for success. He replaced John Elway, something I would not wish on my worst enemy. And he had not processed losing his mother 11 years earlier, which affected his relationships personally and professionally.

With the pressure at pipe-bursting levels with the Broncos, Griese did something he was advised to abandon. He and his wife, Brook, founded Judi’s House in his mother’s honor, providing a place to help grieving families find connection and healing.

“I felt like I was the only 12-year-old who had lost his mother,” Griese said. “I wish I had a place like that to help me in what I was going through.”

Griese became a Pro Bowler in 2000, won 45 NFL games and played 11 seasons. His impact on Denver was bigger because he did so much when we weren’t looking. To date, Judi’s house has served more than 16,000 children and families in the metro area.

Griese remains competitive, but his genuine care for the vulnerable made his epiphany in the quarterback room two years ago understandable. His fourth chapter in life demanded a different platform.

Griese sent off an application to Stanford University, drawn to their executive programs. He figured he would not be accepted. It was primarily for CEOs, and Griese viewed himself as an athlete, underselling his decades-long impact in the community.

He landed a fellowship. His focus is on sustainability. He aims to find solutions to help in the real world. It was why he met with educators at the Colorado School of Mines on Thursday to brainstorm.

But his trip from the Bay Area to Denver was two-fold, well, three if you count my pestering.

Griese sat down with Guild CEO Bijal Shah at the company’s headquarters for a chat about his transition from player to coach and the adoption of effective leadership techniques.

It only took a few minutes to see his advice resonating with the employees, to understand how his vision for quarterbacks helped form his views on life.

“As a player, you are able to determine outcomes. As a coach, you are helping someone control the outcome,” Griese said. “There is less control. But you are pushing and challenging them, making them uncomfortable. Eventually, you get comfortable being uncomfortable, and the only way it works is through trust.”

Griese is no longer in the grind of coaching. He is relaxed, funny, making jokes at my expense. His why and how have never seemed stronger.

“I am back in school, trying to create a way for athletes, people who are trusted, to speak about important issues,” Griese said. “I am leaving football, but I am not leaving sports.”

The Colorado native purchased the former Tavern Littleton, at 2589 W. Main St., for $2.4 million last week. The 6,000-square-foot, 2-story restaurant building fetched $388 per square foot.

“There’s been a number of restaurant groups that have already expressed interest, and we hope to find a user that will take both floors,” Davis said.

Davis, who co-founded the homebuilder Yes! Communities, owns the other 27,000 square feet of office and retail and restaurant along the north side of Main Street between Nevada and Curtice streets. He bought that real estate across three separate purchases from 2005 to 2007.

In 2010, he sold the corner of Curtice and Main to Frank Schultz and Terry Papay for $675,000. The mother and son tore down the existing structure and built the Tavern in its place.

The restaurant closed in February 2024 in connection with a��settlement ending litigation��between the pair, who operated seven locations at one point. The Littleton property was listed for $3.9 million. Schultz did not respond to a request for comment.

Pat Henry, broker with Henry Group Real Estate, represented the sellers in the deal. He said Davis intends to renovate the building, which lowered the final sales price. It was under contract a couple of times before closing at the end of January.

“All the FF&E (furniture, fixtures and equipment) was gutted and taken out of it quite some time ago, and it was basically a shell restaurant space with a killer rooftop patio,” said Henry, who represented the sellers in the deal alongside Boston Weir and Montana Rae.

The mother-and-son pair have closed a handful of other real estate deals out of the dozen they listed for sale. A couple of industrial properties��sold��quickly. A corner building in LoHi��found a buyer��in January 2025. And in October, the Lowry Tavern location��was purchased��by a local surgeon for a music school and venue.

A trio of LoDo office/retail properties and Tavern DTC are still on the market.

Some things didn’t pan out, notably the potential��conversion��of the DTC location into a Cherry Cricket. And Tavern Uptown was��foreclosed on��by former Broncos quarterback John Elway after it��defaulted��on his $5.4 million loan.

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